Playing Catch-Up With The Films of 2017: Transformers: The Last Knight (dir by Michael Bay)

Posted on December 25, 2017 by Lisa Marie Bowman

So, I’m just going to be honest here.

I did watch Transformers: The Last Knight. I didn’t see it at the theaters, of course. To date, I’ve only seen one Transformers movie on the big screen. It was the fourth one and not only did I get motion sick but when I left the theater, I discovered that I was having trouble hearing. Even though I watched Transformers: The Last Knight on a small screen, I still made sure to take some Dramamine beforehand. That may have been a mistake because this movie somehow drags things out for 2 hours and 30 minutes. That’s a lot of time to spend trying to stay awake while watching something that doesn’t even try to make sense.

So, yes, I did watch Transformers: The Last Knight but I’m not really sure what I watched. I know that there was a lot of camera movement. There was a lot of stuff blowing up. Robots would fly into space. Robots would return to Earth. Robots turned into cars. All of the robots spoke in these gravelly voices and half the time, I couldn’t really understand what they were saying. Mark Wahlberg was around and he spent the entire movie with this kind of confused look on his face. His Boston accent really came out whenever he had to deliver his dialogue. One thing I’ve noticed about Wahlberg is that the less he cares about a movie, the more likely he is to go full Boston. To be honest, if I just closed my eyes and listened to Wahlberg’s accent and tuned out all of the explosions and robot talk, I probably would have thought I was watching Manchester By The Sea.

Anthony Hopkins was also in the movie, playing a character who might as well have just been named “Esteemed British Person.” It’s always fun to see Hopkins in a bad movie, just because he knows that his deserved reputation for being a great actor isn’t going to suffer no matter how much crap he appears in. He always goes through these movies with a slightly bemused smirk on his face. It’s almost as if he’s looking out at the audience and saying, “Laugh all you want. I’ll still kick anyone’s ass when it comes to Shakespeare…” Anyway, Hopkins is mostly around so that he can reveal that the Transformers have been on Earth since time began. Why, they even saved King Arthur!

The plot has to do with a powerful staff that can be used to bring life back to the Transformers’s home planet. The problem is that using the staff will also destroy all life on Earth or something like that. So, of course, the good Transformers are trying to save Earth and the bad Transformers are like, “Fuck Earth, let’s blow stuff up.” Or something like that. The main good Transformer — Optimus Prime, I guess — gets brainwashed into becoming an evil Transformer. Of course, since Anthony Hopkins is in the movie, the majority of the film takes place in England and that can only mean a trip to Stonehenge!

And…

Look, I’ve exhausted myself. I’m not going to say that Transformers: The Last Knight is a terrible movie because, obviously, someone out there loves this stuff. I mean, they’ve made five of these movies so someone has to be looking forward to them. They’re not for me, though.

Some day, I hope Micheal Bay directs a Fifty Shades of Grey movie. I look forward to watching Christian and Ana discuss consent while the world explodes behind them.

The National Board of Review names Manchester By The Sea the best of 2016!

Posted on November 29, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Oscar season has officially begun!

Earlier today, The National Board of Review named their picks for the best of the year. They went with Manchester By The Sea and a whole lot of other films that I hope to finally get to see in December!

My favorite two winners? Amy Adams for best actress and Kubo and the Two Strings for Best Animated Film.

A cavaet: Of the so-called “major” precursors, The National Board of Review is usually the one that seems to match up the least with the actual Oscar results.

Here are the winners!

Best Film: Manchester by the Sea

Best Director: Barry Jenkins, Moonlight

Best Actor: Casey Affleck, Manchester by the Sea

Best Actress: Amy Adams, Arrival

Best Supporting Actor: Jeff Bridges, Hell or High Water

Best Supporting Actress: Naomie Harris, Moonlight

Best Original Screenplay: Kenneth Lonergan, Manchester by the Sea

Best Adapted Screenplay: Jay Cocks and Martin Scorsese, Silence

Best Animated Feature: Kubo and the Two Strings
Breakthrough Performance (Male): Lucas Hedges, Manchester by the Sea

Breakthrough Performance (Female): Royalty Hightower, The Fits

Best Directorial Debut: Trey Edward Shults, Krisha

Best Foreign Language Film: The Salesman

Best Documentary: O.J.: Made in America

Best Ensemble: Hidden Figures

Spotlight Award: Creative Collaboration of Peter Berg and Mark Wahlberg

NBR Freedom of Expression Award: Cameraperson

Top Films

Arrival
Hacksaw Ridge
Hail, Caesar!
Hell or High Water
Hidden Figures
La La Land
Moonlight
Patriot’s Day
Silence
Sully

Top 5 Foreign Language Films

Elle
The Handmaiden
Julieta
Land of Mine
Neruda

Top 5 Documentaries

De Palma
The Eagle Huntress
Gleason
Life, Animated
Miss Sharon Jones!

Top 10 Independent Films

20^th Century Women
Captain Fantastic
Creative Control
Eye in the Sky
The Fits
Green Room
Hello, My Name is Doris
Krisha
Morris from America
Sing Street

Ted 2 Sucks!

Posted on June 27, 2015 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Well, I think the title of this review pretty succinctly sums up my reaction to Seth McFarlane’s latest film, Ted 2. Thanks for reading and have a good…

Oh, really?

Okay, I’ve been told that I have to try to think up at least 300 words to say about Ted 2. Otherwise, in the eyes of Rotten Tomatoes, we’re not a legitimate film blog.

*sigh*

Okay.

Anyway, Ted 2 is the story of a talking teddy bear (voice by Seth McFarlane) who likes to smoke weed and … well, that’s about it. He’s just gotten married to Tami-Lynn (Jessica Barth) and they’re having trouble because Tami-Lynn wants a baby but Ted, being a teddy bear, doesn’t have any reproductive organs. So, he and his friend John (Mark Wahlberg) decide to give Tom Brady a handjob so they can still his sperm. But, it turns out, none of that was important because the state of Massachusetts claims that Ted is not even a person. Instead, he’s just “property.” So, now, John and Ted and their lawyer, Sam (Amanda Seyfried), are fighting the courts to win Ted his civil rights. And then Giovanni Ribisi wants to kidnap Ted and Morgan Freeman shows up and says a few words. And the film is narrated by Patrick Stewart because it’s funny to hear Patrick Stewart curse and…

Oh! And Liam Neeson shows up. He’s a customer at the store where Ted works as a cashier. Liam wants to know if Trix are only for kids. The joke here is that it’s Liam Neeson and he’s asking about cereal. Ha ha.

Oh! And there’s two guys who shows up at New York Comic Con so that they can beat up “nerds.” During every scene set at Comic Con, they’re in the background beating people up and insulting them. And the two guys are gay! See, they’re bullies and they’re gay! And they’re beating up random people at Comic Con, just because they can! Hilarious, right?

Ted 2 spends a lot of time trying to convince us that Ted’s struggle to be recognized as a person is actually meant to be a metaphor for the American civil rights movement. But, honestly, I get the feeling that McFarlane relates more to the bullies than he does to any oppressed minority. As he previously proved with his TV shows and A Million Ways To Die In The West, McFarlane is only interested in going after easy targets. He’s your typical white male hipster who thinks that, because he voted for Obama, he can get away with telling racist jokes.

And, before anyone misunderstands, I wouldn’t mind McFarlane’s humor if it was at least funny or original. But instead, it’s the same stupid jokes that he always tells. Seth McFarlane’s comedic technique is to basically drag things out until viewers laugh from pure exhaustion. Is it effective? Well, there are people who continue to praise and defend him and Seth certainly has made a lot of money off of his act. So, obviously, there are people who respond to this. But to me, Seth McFarlane’s humor just feels lazy.

Ted 2 lasts 128 minutes. That’s over two hours devoted to a concept that feels more appropriate for a five-minute skit. Interesting enough, the first Ted was tolerable because it focused on Mark Wahlberg’s Johnny. Ted was just a supporting character and he worked as a metaphor for Johnny’s struggle to choose between growing up or being a happy slacker. (The first Ted was all about Johnny falling in love with Mila Kunis, whose character is rather cruelly dismissed at the start of Ted 2.) In Ted 2, Ted is the central character and once you get over the fact that he’s a teddy bear who drops multiple F bombs, there’s really not much to the character. It helps, of course, that we only have to listen to McFarlane. We don’t have to look at his imminently punchable, oddly lineless face. But, to be honest, even McFarlane’s voice has become grating. It’s just so self-satisfied and smug.

I saw Ted 2 with the blogger also known as Jedadiah Leland. Over the course of 128 ~~hours~~ minutes (it just felt like hours), we each laughed once. Not surprisingly, both laughs were inspired by Wahlberg’s dumb-but-sweet performance. Now, I will admit that the rest of the audience laughed a bit more than we did. But still, there was a definite atmosphere of resignation in the theater. You could literally hear the people thinking, “Oh, Ted just made a joke about black people. Better laugh now so everyone knows that I get whatever the Hell this is supposed to be. After all, those tickets weren’t free…”

What’s the word count now?

758?

Cool.

That’s enough words for me to say, “Ted 2 sucks!”

Embracing the Melodrama Part II #93: Boogie Nights (dir by Paul Thomas Anderson)

Posted on May 31, 2015 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The 1997 film Boogie Nights (which, amazingly enough, was not nominated for best picture) is a bit of an overwhelming film to review. It’s a great film and, if you’re reading this review, you’ve probably seen Boogie Nights and you probably already know that it’s a great film. And if you haven’t seen Boogie Nights, you really should because it’s a great film. So, this review, in short, amounts to: Great film.

Boogie Nights takes place in the late 70s and the early 80s. Eddie Adams (Mark Wahlberg) is a high school dropout who works as a busboy, lives with his parents, and has a really big cock. (Indeed, one of the film’s most famous lines is, “This is a giant cock.”) When we first meet Eddie, he’s likable and cute in a dumb sort of way. Then he meets adult film director Jack Horner (Burt Reynolds) and becomes a star. At first, everything is great. Eddie changes his name to Dirk Diggler and no longer has to deal with his abusive mother (a chilling Joanna Gleason). Jack and Amber Waves (Julianne Moore) become his new parents. He gets a cool older brother in the form of actor Reed Rothschild (John C. Reilly, totally nailing the “People tell me that I look like Han Solo,” line). He makes friends with other adult film actors, like the desperately unhip Buck (Don Cheadle), the free-spirited (and secretly very angry) Rollergirl (Heather Graham), and the poignantly insecure Jessie St. Vincent (Melora Walters). He gets new admirers, like Scotty J. (Philip Seymour Hoffman). He also gets addicted to cocaine. And while Dirk falls from stardom, the adult film industry is taken over by gangsters like Floyd Gondolli (Philip Baker Hall) and self-styled artists like Jack Horner find themselves pushed to the side.

And you may have noticed that I mentioned a lot of actors in the paragraph above. That’s because Boogie Nights is a true ensemble piece. It’s full of great performances and memorable characters. Along with everyone that I mentioned above, the cast also includes William H. Macy as cinematographer “Little Bill” Daggett. From the minutes we first meet Little Bill, we get the feeling that he might be a little bit too uptight for pornography. Maybe that’s because his wife — played by the inspiring sex positive feminist and veteran adult film star Nina Hartley — is constantly and publicly cheating on him. Macy and Hartley do not have as much screen time as the rest of the cast but, ultimately, their characters are two of the most important in the film.

And then there’s Robert Ridgely, who is marvelously sleazy as the paternal but ultimately icky Col. James. When we first meet the Colonel, he’s almost a humorous character. But then, suddenly, there’s one chilling scene where he opens up to Jack Horner and we are forced to reconsider everything that we had previously assumed about both the Colonel and his business.

And how can we forget Luis Guzman, as a club owner who desperately wants to appear in one of Jack’s films? Or Ricky Jay as a plain-spoken cameraman? Or how about Thomas Jane, playing one of those tightly wound characters who you know is going to be trouble as soon as you see him? And finally, nobody who has seen Boogie Nights will ever forget Alfred Molina, singing along to Sister Christian and running down the street, clad only in black bikini briefs and firing a shotgun.

But it’s not just the actors who make Boogie Nights a great film. This was Paul Thomas Anderson’s second film and, under his direction, we feel as if we’ve been thrown straight into Dirk’s exciting and ultimately dangerous world. When the film begins, the camera almost seems to glide, capturing the excitement of having everything that you could possibly want. But, as things go downhill for Dirk, the camerawork gets more jittery and nervous. A sequence where Anderson cuts back and forth between Jack trying to shoot a movie on video (as opposed to his beloved film) and Dirk nearly being beaten to death in a parking lot remains one of the best sequences that Anderson has ever directed.

And then there’s the music! Oh my God! The music!

And the dancing!

And the singing!

I’ll be the first admit that I have no idea whether or not Boogie Nights is a realistic portrait of the adult film industry in the 70s and 80s. But ultimately, Boogie Nights is not about porn. It’s about a group of outsiders who form their own little family. At the end of the film, you’re happy that they all found each other. You know that Dirk will probably continue to have problems in the future but you’re happy for him because, no matter what happened in the past or what’s going to happen in the future, you know that he’s found a family that will always love him.

As I mentioned at the start of this appreciation, Boogie Nights was not nominated for best picture. Titanic was named the best picture of 1997. As I’ve said before, I loved Titanic when I was 12. But, nearly 18 years later, Boogie Nights is definitely the better picture.

It has stood the test of time.

Trash Film Guru Vs. The Summer Blockbusters : “Transformers : Age Of Extinction”

Posted on July 9, 2014 by Ryan C. (fourcolorapocalypse)

You can accuse Michael Bay of many things — overblown spectacle, formulaic hackery, using CGI as a massive crutch, general lack of anything resembling original vision — but false advertising ins’t among them : when you go see a Bay-directed flick, particularly a Bay-directed Transfomers flick, you know exactly what you’re in for.

Oh, sure, his latest — Transformers : Age Of Extinction — alters the basic cosmetic trappings somewhat, most notably by banishing Shia LaBeouf to whatever hell for dead careers Megan Fox was earlier castigated to in favor of proven “action hero” star Mark Wahlberg, and yeah, Stanley Tucci is about the only major holdover (as far as human beings go) from previous entries in this series (look for more newcomers in the form of Kelsey Grammer and Nicola Peltz as Wahlberg’s daughter), but this is no reboot, by any stretch.

For one thing, the story continues directly on from the previous efforts, with the Transformers having been “driven underground,” so to speak, thanks to a government witch-hunt until no less than Optimus Prime himself is discovered and “resurrected” by Wahlberg’s Cade Yeager (there’s a focus-group-tested name if I’ve ever heard one) character, who —

Oh, fuck it. Does this even matter? Does even the most hard-core fan of this franchise — and that’s precisely what it is, a franchise — care what the plots of these films are about? If so, you have to feel a sort of pity for them, because Bay and screenwriter Ehren Kruger (who was supposed to be the “next big thing” once upon a time for a few minutes there) clearly don’t. Every single “slow” or “quiet” scene is obviously just set-up to carry us into the next big CGI set piece, so we won’t waste our time here with a terribly detailed breakdown of the story. Sound fair?

All in all, Transformers : Age Of Extinction is all about getting the job done, slapping the finished product up on the screen, and opening up those cash register drawers. In that respect — and that one only — you’ve gotta say “mission accomplished” here. This movie is making money hand over fist and evidently the public’s appetite for more and more robo-carnage is proving to be flat-out insatiable. We apparently love this shit.

The question I have is — who’s “we”? Like the ever-ephemeral “they” of “well, they say you should — ” and “they say it’s not good for you to —” fame, the target audience for these films eludes me. I don’t like ’em. Nobody I know likes ’em. Nobody whose reviews I read online likes ’em. Nobody anywhere seems to like ’em.

And yet there it is — an 87% CinemaScore rating and another sequel already germinating somewhere in the pipeline. How, exactly, does this happen?

The short answer is — I don’t know. There’s obviously an appreciative audience for these things out there somewhere, but I can’t figure out where it is, beyond perhaps in junior high schoolyards. That’s not enough to explain the phenomenon, though. I know it’s purely anecdotal, but when I went to see this film, the theater had maybe 30 or 40 people in it, and the crowd remained silent throughout. No clapping and cheering. No gasping in awe. No chuckles at the limp one-liners. And yet it wasn’t a rapturous, devotional silence these folks were in the midst of — it was just a kind of “blah” sense of resignation. We were here. This was happening. Everything, apparently, was as it should be. Until the end credits rolled, and we all left to do whatever it is we were supposed to do next.

And maybe that’s the genius and/or malevolence of what Bay and company have come up with here in a nutshell : Tranfromers movies, for all their empty-hearted and empty-headed spectacle, aren’t huge pop culture events anymore. But a lot of us — myself included — keep going to them because they’re supposed to be. And we’re supposed to be there for them. It’s almost like a kind of Orwellian mass conditioning going on : we’re told this is a big deal and, lemmings that we are, we don’t want to miss out on that. Final score : Michael Bay and Paramount Pictures 1, hope for humanity 0.

Pessimistic? Sure. But is there any reason not to be? A family of four left the theater at exactly the same time I did and their car was parked right next to mine. We followed the same route for a few blocks (I wasn’t purposely tailing them, I promise!) — until they pulled into a McDonald’s. And that pretty much says it all right there.

Trailer: Transformers: Age of Extinction (Official)

Posted on March 4, 2014 by Arleigh

I know, I know, another Transformers extravaganza coming this summer. As if the last two wasn’t enough to swear me off the franchise. Well, guess what this one doesn’t have any of the actors from the first three and drops in a whole bunch of new ones to play war with the aforementioned robots who are more than meets the eye.

Instead of Shia LaBeouf in the lead role screaming like the most unheroic lead ever we get the manly man Mark Walhberg himself playing a Texas dad out to protect his daughter from the men in black while jump starting a rusted Optimus Prime on his spare time.

This fourth film looks to be a new start for the franchise that we all thought ended with a bang and a whimper with Transformers: Dark of the Moon, but there were still more Transformers that never made it to the bigscreen and what better way to do that than make a fourth. So, it looks like fans finally get Grimlock and the Dinobots plus a Decepticon that looks to be Galvatron.

Again, I will be seeing this (it’s like the scifi blockbuster version of Saw) just for the fact that it doesn’t have Shia LaBeouf for people to listen to scream shrilly every two or three minutes. Plus, it has Optimus Prime wrestling and then riding Grimlock.

Transformers: Age of Extinction is ready to make our eyes explode on June 27, 2014.

44 Days of Paranoia #28: The Departed (dir by Martin Scorsese)

Posted on December 18, 2013 by Lisa Marie Bowman

For our latest entry in the 44 Days of Paranoia, we take look at the film that the Academy named the best picture of 2006, Martin Scorsese’s The Departed.

The Departed takes the plot of the 2002 Hong Kong film Infernal Affairs and transports it to Boston. For years, crime lord Frank Costello (Jack Nicholson) has ruled South Boston with an iron fist. However, police Captain Queenan (Martin Sheen) and his assistant, Sgt. Dignan (Mark Wahlberg) think that they have finally found a way to take Costello down. They recruit police academy trainee Billy Costigan (Leonardo DiCaprio) to go undercover and infiltrate Costello’s organization. To help establish his cover, Costigan drops out of the academy and does time in prison on a fake assault charge.

Meanwhile, Costello has an agent of his own. Years earlier, Colin Sullivan (Matt Damon) was specifically recruited and trained by Costello to become a mole inside the Massachusetts State Police. Sullivan soon finds himself also working under Queenan.

While the amoral Sullivan finds it easy to deal with his dual role of being both a cop and a criminal, the far more emotionally unstable Costigan has a much more difficult time of it. Not helping is the fact that Costello turns out to be a legitimate madman who spends half of his time dismembering people and the other half serving as a secret informant to the FBI. While Sullivan smoothly works his way up the ranks, Costigan pops pills and becomes more and more paranoid.

Eventually, both Costigan and Sullivan are ordered to uncover the double agents in their respective organizations. What they don’t realize is that, even as they both attempt to learn the other’s identity, they are both seeing the same woman, psychiatrist Madolyn (Vera Farmiga.)

In the scene below, which happens to be my favorite from the entire film, Costigan and Madolyn make love after Madolyn assures Costigan that she doesn’t have a cat. That makes sense when you consider that Costigan is essentially a rat.

I have to admit that, as much as I did appreciate certain parts of the film, I was still disappointed the first time I saw The Departed. It wasn’t so much that the movie itself was bad as much as it was the fact that it didn’t live up to the standard set by previous Scorsese films. The film seemed to somehow be both conventional and overly busy at the same time, with the constantly moving camera and the propulsive soundtrack feeling more like they were more the result of a director trying to be like Scorsese than Scorsese himself. While I appreciated the comedic relief of Alec Baldwin’s performance as Queenan’s rival on the force and I thought that Matt Damon made a compelling villain, both Leonardo DiCaprio and Martin Sheen seemed to have been bitten by the overacting bug. It was hard not to feel somewhat disappointed that, after waiting for over three decades to be honored by the Academy, Scorsese finally won his Oscar for The Departed.

However, with subsequent viewings, The Departed has grown on me. Once I was freed up from the expectations that come from watching a Scorsese film for the first time, I was able to enjoy The Departed for what it actually was, a very well-made and entertaining crime drama that occasionally flirted with being something more.

Watching The Departed for a second time, I was better able to appreciate the sly humor of Jack Nicholson’s performance. As played by Nicholson, Frank Costello becomes both the devil incarnate and a somewhat pathetic relic who is incapable of understanding that his time has passed. Watching Nicholson for a second time also led to me better appreciating Martin Sheen’s performance. Since Nicholson and Sheen are meant to the equivalent of the angel and the devil sitting on Damon and DiCaprio’s shoulders, it was necessary for Sheen to be as virtuous as Nicholson was demonic.

By the time that I watched The Departed for the third time, it was a lot more obvious to me that the entire film was, more or less, meant to be a satire. What Nicholson’s criminal empire and Sheen’s police force have in common is that neither one of them works the way that they’re supposed to. If there’s anything to be learned from the film, it’s that nothing means much of anything. (The Coen Brothers would be proud.)

Finally, after multiple viewings, it becomes obvious that The Departed is very much a Scorsese film. Even if his direction isn’t quite as showy as viewers have come to expect, there’s still enough little touches and details that remind us that this film was made by a master. To cite the obvious example that everyone cites, just watch for the X’s that always somehow manage to appear on the wall or the carpet before anyone in the film dies. With multiple viewings, It also became obvious to me that even if this film was set in Boston and not New York and even if the characters were Irish and not Italian, this film was still thematically pure Scorsese, dealing with themes of guilt, identity, punishment, and martyrdom.

Like all worthwhile films, The Departed is one that grows better with subsequent viewings.

Other Entries In The 44 Days of Paranoia

44 Days of Paranoia #21: Broken City (dir by Allen Hughes)

Posted on December 8, 2013 by Lisa Marie Bowman

For today’s entry in the 44 Days of Paranoia, let’s take a look at one of the most disappointing films of 2013, Broken City.

It’s a bit hard to describe the plot of Broken City, not because it’s particularly clever but just because there’s so much of it. The film starts with New York police detective Billy Taggart (Mark Wahlberg) murdering a man in cold blood. But don’t worry, the murdered man was a murderer himself who was only out of jail on a technicality. The Mayor of New York, Nicholas Hostetler (Russell Crowe, who sounds like he’s as much of a New Yorker as I am and I ain’t no New Yorker), pulls some strings and get a judge to drop the charges against Billy. The Mayor tells Billy that he’s a hero but Billy is still forced to leave the police.

Jump forward seven years later. Mayor Hostetler is locked in a tight re-election battle. His opponent is a liberal councilman named Jack Valliant (Barry Pepper.) Yes, the man’s last name is Valliant and — surprise! — it turns out that he’s actually a really sincere guy who wants to make New York a great place to live. We know this because we get to sit through an endless debate between him and Hostetler. While Hostetler gives a speech about how he’s against higher taxes, Valliant says that all he’s doing is asking the rich “to pay their fair share.” The debate audience, of course, explodes into applause. Valliant never gets around to saying, “If you like your plan, you can keep your plan.” Maybe they’re saving that for the sequel.

Meanwhile, Billy is now a private investigator. His girlfriend is an actress who has just appeared in an independent film. When Billy goes to the premiere, he’s so upset over the sight of his girlfriend being taken from behind on the big screen that he starts drinking and attacking random strangers on the street.

Meanwhile, (in many ways, Broken City is a movie of meanwhiles) Mayor Hostetler has hired Billy to follow his wife Cathleen (Catherine Zeta-Jones) and discover who she’s having an affair with. Working with his assistant (played by Alona Tal), Billy follows Cathleen and discovers that she’s been spending time with Paul Andrews (Kyle Chandler), who happens to be the manager of the Valliant campaign…

Or is she? As Billy subsequently discovers, the truth is a lot more complicated than it seems (or probably needs to be).

Broken City got a lot of attention because the script was listed on the 2008 Black List. The Black List is an annual list of the “best” unproduced scripts in Hollywood. Now, it should be understood that the concept of what makes something the “best” is always open to interpretation. In the case of the Black List, the “best” is determined by a survey of studio and production executives. The Black List comes out every December and it usually provides an excuse for lazy entertainment writers to write yet another article or blog post bemoaning all of the Hollywood remakes while so many creative and original scripts remain unproduced.

But here’s the thing. Since, I started reviewing films for the Shattered Lens, I’ve had the chance to see several films that were produced from Black List scripts. A few of them have been good but the majority of them have either been likable but forgettable (i.e., Cedar Rapids) or else they’ve been total and complete disasters, like The Beaver. Typically, Black List films tend to be overly complicated, overly ambitious, and never quite as intelligent as they may seem. Frequently, Black List scripts tend to be a bit cutesy in a way that’s effective on paper but annoying on screen. (For example, naming your film’s only good politician Jack Valliant is one of those cutesy concepts that tend to turn up in a lot of Black List scripts.) Several of these scripts, Broken City included, are thrillers that attempt to use the conventions of the genre film to make some larger point about American society. They’ve usually got some sort of dreary political subtext and they always seem to feature a twist that’s surprising only because it doesn’t make any sense.

And that is certainly the case when it comes to Broken City. Don’t get me wrong — the film starts well and Mark Wahlberg is well-cast as the hero. But, with each passing minute of film, things get messier and messier until, finally, it’s impossible to take the film seriously. It’s obvious that director Allen Hughes meant for Broken City to be more than just a thriller. Instead, in much the same way that Charles Dickens used London, Hughes makes a valiant effort to use the film’s New York as a metaphor for our own corrupt society. Under Hughes’s direction, Broken City does a lot without doing any of it that well.

Indeed, if I could give this film an A for effort and ambition, I certainly would. However, in the end, a film should first be judged by what is actually seen on-screen. Taken by that standard, Broken City is a mess, a disorganized collection of themes and subplots that attempts to do so much that it accomplishes very little. Russell Crowe and Catherine Zeta-Jones both struggle to sound like New Yorkers while Barry Pepper is so overly intense and wired as the saintly Valliant that I would be scared to vote for him. Seriously, he seems like the type who would start a war in the name of social justice and then end up having so much fun killing and conquering that he’d forget what the reason for fighting was in the first place. On a positive note, Mark Wahlberg and Alona Tal have a very likable chemistry and it’s too bad that the rest of the film didn’t take better advantage of it.

Broken City? Broken film.

Other Entries In The 44 Days of Paranoia

Guilty Pleasure No. 14: Fear (dir by James Foley)

Posted on October 15, 2013 by Lisa Marie Bowman

After I wrote my review of Horror of Dracula, I started thinking about all of the cinematic bad boys that I have known and loved. There’s just something undeniably exciting about having a good-looking psycho obsessing over you!

That leads us to today’s guilty pleasure. First released in 1996 and a mainstay on cable, Fear is one of the ultimate bad boy psycho films.

Fear tells the story of what happens when 16 year-old Nicole (played by Reese Witherspoon) meets and falls for David (Mark Wahlberg), a polite young man who happens to be crazy.

The first half of the film actually makes a pretty good case for hooking up with a bad boy. David treats Nicole like a princess, encourages her to break curfew, fingerfucks her on a roller coaster in a scene that makes fingerfucking seem as romantic as anything you’ll find in a Nicholas Sparks novel, and finally sneaks into her house so he can take her virginity.

These scenes capture the appeal of a bad boy — the feeling of danger, the thrill of rebellion, and, most poignantly, that feeling that only you can truly understand what a prince you have discovered. Witherspoon and Wahlberg are especially good in these scenes, with Witherspoon perfectly capturing the wide-eyed thrill of being in love while Wahlberg is the epitome of every guy in high school that I should not have dated but did.

There’s one small moment that hints at what is going to come. While talking to Nicole’s dad, Steven (played, with characteristic intensity, by William Petersen), David orders Nicole to get him a drink, causing the overprotective Stephen to glance up with a look of sudden suspicion. It’s a well-acted and subtle scene, one that will feel painfully real to anyone who has ever been in a similar situation.

It’s shortly after that scene that the entire film basically goes crazy.

After David catches Nicole’s best friend giving her an innocent hug, David responds by going crazy and beating him up. Nicole dumps David but then, largely as a response to her father being overprotective, she decides to give him a second chance.

Steven confronts David and orders him to stay away from his daughter. In an oddly hilarious scene, David responded by robotically beating his chest until he’s apparently covered with bruises. It’s a totally over-the-top scene that pretty much lets us know that Fear is no longer interested in being a realistic portrait of a naive girl dating an abusive guy.

Suddenly, we discover that David isn’t just a jerk with anger issues. Instead, he’s some sort of teenage crime lord, who lives in a dilapidated mansion with his equally low-life friends. While Nicole is busy writing Nicole Luvs David on her notebook, David is selling crack and having sex with her best friend Margo (played by, believe it or not, Alyssa Milano).

But that’s not all! When Nicole dumps David for a second time, David responds by tattooing her name on his chest and then gathering together his minions so that they can lay siege to Steven’s mountainside home.

“Don’t worry,” Steven tells his wife (Amy Brenneman), “I’m not going to let anyone get in here.”

And so, in that moment, Fear goes from being every girl’s fantasy of finding her misunderstood prince to being every parent’s fantasy — not only is Steven proven right about his daughter’s boyfriend but he also gets to kick his ass.

Watching Fear is an odd experience. The film starts out being romantic, well-acted, and, at times, even achingly poignant until, suddenly, it turns into one of the most over-the-top home invasion films ever made. It makes for an oddly schizophrenic viewing experience and it also makes this film into a true guilty pleasure.

6 Films That Are Not The Dark Knight Rises: The Girl From Naked Eye, Magic Mike, Rock of Ages, Ted, 21 Jump Street, and Underworld: Awakening

Posted on July 22, 2012 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Right now, everyone seems to be heading out to see The Dark Knight Rises for the first, second, or hundredth time. By my own personal count, the various writers here at The Shattered Lens have seen the film a combined total of 12 times since it opened on Friday. (Myself, I’ll be seeing it on Tuesday.)

But what if you don’t want to see The Dark Knight Rises this week? What if you just don’t want to deal with the big crowds? Maybe you want to wait a few months so that you can see it for a dollar. Or maybe, you showed up at the theater and discovered that the showing was sold out or perhaps you’re just not into the whole Batman thing. What then? Well, believe it or not, there are other movies out there and below, you can find 6 reviews of films that came out this year but are not The Dark Knight Rises. Some of them are worth seeing and some of them definitely are not. But all six of them are alternatives for those of you who want to see a movie but, for whatever reason, don’t want to see The Dark Knight Rises.

(Even better, they’re six films that I saw earlier this year but, until now, still hadn’t gotten around to reviewing.)

1) The Girl From Naked Eye (dir by David Ren)

Jake (Jason Yee) is the driver for a sleazy escort service that’s headquartered out of a strip club called Naked Face. Jake ends up falling in love with Sandy (Samantha Streets), an escort who writes poetry in her spare time. (Yes, one of those…) When Sandy is murdered, Jake goes on a violent search for her murderer.

The Girl From Naked Eye is a pretty uneven and rather predictable film but I actually enjoyed it. It’s obvious that director David Ren is a fan of the same old film noirs that I love and, at its best, Girl From Naked Eye is a loving tribute to those films. Streets is likable as the ill-fated Sandy and Gary Stretch brings some unexpected depth to his villainous role. Perhaps best of all, Girl From Naked Eye is only 80 minutes long. Sometimes, you just don’t need that extra 30 minutes to tell your story.

The Girl From Naked Eye is very much an independent film so it might be playing near you or it might not.

2) Magic Mike (dir. by Stephen Soderbergh)

After me and my BFF Evelyn saw Magic Mike, I hopped on twitter and I tweeted, “Memo to single guys. Go hang out around the theater when Magic Mike gets out. You will get laid!” Yes, Magic Mike is that type of film…

“Magic” Mike (played by Channing Tatum) is the most popular attraction at Xquisite, a male strip club that’s run by Dallas (a wonderfully sleazy performance from Matthew McConaughey). Mike ends up serving as a mentor for Adam (Alex Pettyfer) while pursuing Adam’s disapproving sister (Cody Horn) and saving up his money so that he can start his own business. However, the life proves a lot more difficult for him to leave then he originally thought…

There’s actually a lot of plot in Magic Mike but, ultimately, it doesn’t matter. The film knows that we’re all here to watch Tatum, Alex Pettyfer, and Joe Manganiello shake everything that they’ve got and the film does not disappoint. Director Steven Soderbergh’s directs in such a way that the film’s dance numbers are both exciting and, at the same time, distancing. By taking a rather documentary approach to otherwise salacious material, Soderbergh reminds us that, ultimately, Tatum is just doing a job and fulfilling the requirements of fantasy as opposed to reality.

When Christy Lemire of the Associates Press gave a less than positive review to The Dark Knight Rises, all of the fanboys on Rotten Tomatoes became obsessed with the fact that she had previously given a positive review to Magic Mike. Many of them left comments complaining that the only reason Lemire enjoyed Magic Mike was because it featured naked men. While all one has to do is read Lemire’s review to see that’s not the case, so what if it was? Films have been objectifying women for over a century. What’s wrong with a little fair play?

Magic Mike is still in theaters.

3) Rock of Ages (dir. by Adam Shankman)

In this adaptation of the hit Broadway show, Sherrie Christian (Julianne Hough) is an innocent girl from Oklahoma who dreams of finding super stardom in Los Angeles. She gets a job working as a waitress at an incredibly filthy-looking club run by Alec Baldwin and she also gets a boyfriend (played by Diego Boneta) who is an aspiring musician himself. Everything’s great except for the fact that the mayor’s puritanical wife (Catherine Zeta-Jones) hates rock and roll and wants to close the club down. Luckily, alcoholic rock star Stacee Jaxx (Tom Cruise) is willing to help out. Did I mention that Russell Brand is in this film as well? Because, he like totally is…

Rock of Ages gives you a chance to watch your favorite actors and actresses shake it to some of the least danceable music ever written and it’s just about as bad you might expect. Between the vanilla performances of Hough and Boneta and the film’s rampant sexism (every female in the film is either a shrew or a whore and apparently, the only thing that can redeem them is allowing Tom Cruise to drunkenly cop a feel), Rock of Ages is a combination of the forgettable and stuff that you wish you could forget. For a director who specializes in musicals, Shankman seems strangely lost here and the majority of the big numbers feel lifeless. The one bright spot is Mary J. Blige who shows up in a minor role and quickly reminds everyone what singing is all about.

Rock of Ages opened with a lot of hype but that hype didn’t translate into box office success. You can probably still catch it at the dollar theater but you might want your money back afterward.

4) Ted (directed by Seth MacFarlane)

Ted tells the story of a lonely 8 year-old boy who, one night, wishes that his beloved teddy bear Ted might come to life. Well, Ted does come to life and ends up proving to the world that magic does exist. Briefly, Ted and his owner are celebrities but soon, Ted’s fame fades and, 28 years later, Ted (voiced by director Seth MacFarlane) and his owner (now played by Mark Wahlberg) are slackers who spend their time smoking weed, watching TV, and obsessing over pop culture. (At times, it almost felt as if the film was a documentary about life here at the TSL Bunker.) However, Wahlberg’s girlfriend (Mila Kunis) feels that Ted is holding him back and eventually, Wahlberg is forced to make a choice between childhood friendship and adult love.

I have to admit that I’m not a huge fan of Seth MacFarlane’s. I hate the Family Guy and I’ve never gotten through more than 2 minutes of The Cleveland Show. However, I also have to admit that I enjoyed Ted for what it was. It’s a massively uneven film that pretty much tells the same joke over and over again but that joke (i.e. a cute toy saying or doing something incredibly crude) turns out to be surprisingly resilient. For their part, Wahlberg and Kunis are a likable couple and Kunis does a good job generating some much-needed sympathy for her thinly drawn character. Add to that, Joel McHale is in this film and how can I not enjoy a film that features Joel McHale?

Ted is still playing at a theater near you.

5) 21 Jump Street (dir. by Phil Lord and Chris Miller)

Morton (Jonah Hill) and Greg (Channing Tatum) have been unlikely friends since high school. Greg was a jock and bully while Morton was a guy who looked and acted a lot like Jonah Hill. When Greg and Morton graduate high school, they both enter the police academy together and, upon getting out of the academy, they find themselves assigned to hazardous duty like patrolling the local park. However, it turns out that there’s a new designer drug out there and Hill and Tatum are both sent back to high school. Only now, they’re working under cover…

21 Jump Street was a real surprise when it came out earlier this year, a laugh-out-loud comedy that managed to both satirize and celebrate the conventions of the American cop film. Hill and Tatum had a lot of chemistry together and there was something oddly touching about watching Hill return to high school and discover that he was now considered the cool guy while Tatum was now the outsider. 21 Jump Street has kinda gotten forgotten in all the hype surrounding The Avengers and the Dark Knight Rises but ultimately, 21 Jump Street can stand with those two films as proof that occasionally a big-budget studio production can turn out to actually be a good film.

(Plus, James Franco’s look-alike brother, Dave Franco, is in it!)

21 Jump Street is available now on DVD and Blu-Ray but it’s also still playing at a few dollar theaters across the country.

6) Underworld: Awakening (dir by Mans Marlind and Bjorn Stein)

Selene (Kate Beckinsale) is back and this time, she’s searching for Michael, who has gone missing. The plot doesn’t make much sense and the film has one of the most disappointing endings ever but it does provide the viewers with everything that they’ve come to expect from an Underworld film (with the exception of Scott Speedman, who does not return to the role of Michael in this film).

Underworld: Awakening opened at the beginning of the year, got terrible reviews, and made a decent enough amount of money that there will probably be yet another installment in the series come 2014. That said, Underworld: Awakening is probably the most vapid of all of the Underworld films (and that’s saying something) and, following the releases of both The Avengers and the Dark Knight Rises, it looks like even more of an empty exercise in CGI and action than it did when it was originally released. That said, this film does star my girl crush, Kate Beckinsale, and, after watching her in this film, I spent a few hours looking for monsters to fight. I will always recommend any film that features a women kicking ass and that’s about the only reason I have to recommend Underworld: Awakening.

Underworld: Awakening is currently available on both DVD and Blu-Ray.